


Sacrifice and plant flowers of the mourning bride

by Sin_of_the_Fallen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, Neither Keith or Shiro appear in this fic, Other, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 10:32:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14283015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sin_of_the_Fallen/pseuds/Sin_of_the_Fallen
Summary: Self-sacrifice has many interpretations. This is one of them.





	Sacrifice and plant flowers of the mourning bride

 

 

 

Lance first knows he’s hip deep in shit when he starts coughing up bloody handfuls of petals. _Two_ kinds of petals to top off the “Oh fuck no” sundae.

 

He could pass it off as just some really inconvenient crushes when it was one or two unbloodied petals he coughed out randomly. Everyone went through it, that first sign of that is was a serious crush and not a passing thing. Hell, he was pretty sure he’d seen Keith cough up one or two after Allura and Hunk proved just how strong they could be when they wanted for, like, a week. And Shiro had acted pretty suspiciously around that one Galra right?  

 

So a few petals was nothing, though he wished he’d paid a little more attention to the information about what people thought the petal type symbolized. Supposedly the kind of flower you grew was what most attracted you to the person? Or something like that.

 

But not even speculating over the love lives of his friends can really distract him. When you have bloody handfuls of petals (and was there some leaves and maybe stem in there- _fuck_ there was) not even weapons-grade denial can destroy the fact that Lance McClain is so fucking over his head right now.

 

* * *

 

 

With the rudest and most painful wakeup call yet (forced awake and running for the toilet to vomit up a mouthful of mixed petals and leaves), Lance owns up to himself that he’s half-way in love with Shiro and Keith. And that they very obviously don’t feel any of that love back at him otherwise there wouldn’t be goddamn flowers trying to grow in his lungs. In fact they seemed to be eyeing _each other_ if anything.

 

Which…was not good. Like mega-not good, because while he might not have hawk like observation skills, he was painfully aware of how he seemed to be the eternal seventh wheel. And that was just in the day-to-day stuff.  Sure he had Hunk, which meant he was winning against like 90 percent of the universe, Blue who flew them to a chill 95 percent, sometimes Pidge which meant he was boosted to winning against 98 percent, and Coran who slid them ( _not_ with the Sliperies slick, god no) all to a cool 99 point eight…But he…Really didn’t have much of a good relationship with the other three. 

 

Emphasis on _good_.

 

Allura, well, he would admit now that the hour of self-honesty had come (one every decade!) that he had made his bed there. Though Lance felt that by now Allura should at least treat him like the paladin he was. Holding his poor reaction to stress and fear – jokes and flirtation to try to defuse it and make it less pants-shittingly terrifying, doesn’t hurt she’s utterly gorgeous – against him forever is unfair. But honestly he can deal with it, will deal with it, since he’s still the Blue Paladin and it won’t kill him within weeks if he’s unlucky.

 

Hell, if he’s going to be honest, he might as well try to resolve his issues with Allura and her issues with him after this. That’s something to look forward to right? Mending the fence with the hottest princess in the universe and going on to be kickass friends who kick ass together? Yeah, that _totally_ is an awesome thing to aim for! If Hunk knew he’d absolutely give him one of his amazing hugs at this positive thinking!

 

(Hunk cannot know because he’s nosy, invasive, and can’t keep the secrets he ferrets out most of the time. Lance absolutely wants this to never see the light of day, because Hanahaki isn’t something you _move on from_.)

Now to square up and face the two headed beast he tells himself, before sniggering as the infamous Shakespeare quote “beast with two backs” slides into his thoughts and Lance is torn between _oh god no_ and _oh god **yes**_.

 

He can’t afford to waste his allotted time of self-honesty though – plus, you know, he’s literally going to die if Hanahaki has its way – so Lance braces himself and digs out the really horrifying stuff he keeps in a locked box for situations he can’t afford to be distracted by horniness:

 

Zarkon, wearing a too small g-string and nipple tassels, gyrating on a stripper pole made by the Black Bayard. There’s sweat dripping off the matted purple fur, the tassels bounce madly, and he’s smiling at Lance in the hungriest manner possible while his eyes are focused on Lance’s crotch.

 

Oh yeah, he absolutely could be celibate for life right now. Never again would his sword raise proudly, no guns in his pants, no sexual metaphors or simile would ever apply to him again. Virgin monks who had never seen an attractive person ever were sex-mad party-animals in comparison to him. So he was now in the perfect state to seriously consider the shitty situation he had gotten himself into.

 

Falling for Shiro is so easy to understand, really. Lance knew the man left infatuated aliens in their wake like the contrail of a jet. In fact it was a damn good thing that the Galra hadn’t caught onto the pattern of besotted aliens in the wake of Shiro passing by, since that would quickly make stealth missions impossible.

 

But really, Shiro was just so very _kind._

 

His kindness just shone from him, bringing all his other good traits into an even better light. The way he cared, helped others, and gave so many damns about the universe despite what had been done to him, it would be impossible not to be a little in love with the man. And Lance had already been more than a little in love with his hero long before he finally met the man.

 

It hurt to see him question himself, get that haunted and blank look on his face, when Lance knew with a certainty that was stronger than Voltron that no matter what Shiro had done he was a good person. It also hurt to watch him dismiss him, and even Hunk, but it was like Allura. The bed was made by their own first impressions, and so far he hadn’t really tried to force Shiro to look again since they’d been busy trying to figure out how to survive in Star Wars: The Grimmer and Power-Ranger-y edition. Plus the little fact he’d contracted Hanahaki.  

 

Lance felt his lungs stutter as the flowers inside moved, and pain wracked him with futile coughs that splattered his hand with blood. He guessed thinking about Shiro too much had aggravated the Hanahaki. Wasn’t too far-fetched since the damn thing could divine emotions so perfectly.

 

He pulled his hand away from his mouth and grimaced. Ugh, so unsanitary; and noticeable. He really had to hurry up with this whole self-honesty business didn’t he? Too bad he hadn’t practiced more.

 

Keith was, was, it sounded like a Facebook status but his relationship with Keith was _complicated_. Keith had been a goal, a rival to measure himself against, and even something to reluctantly admire back in the Garrison. The fact he was pretty was just the icing on the cake of rage back then, not the majorly pressing issue it became out here in space.

 

Actually meeting with Keith and interacting with him was pretty much a confirmation of the burning hatred in his gut. His rival was a rude asshole who didn’t even have the decency to remember him! The nasty little desert hobo even had the nerve to completely hog Shiro, his hero!

 

Lance frankly would have been content to continue along that nice and familiar road, but no, Voltron had to have teamwork and they had to get along etcetera etcetera. Plus, a spaceship, no matter how big, is always too fucking tiny. Everyone lived on top of one another and you couldn’t try disappearing into an unexplored floor without someone losing their mind over you being gone; the fact Lance had gotten lost for two days exploring the Castle had nothing to do with that.

 

Lance gave himself a mental shake and forced himself back to his original train of thought. All of those things had meant he had to actually get to know Keith somewhat, work with him on life or death missions, tolerate him at least a little. And God he regrets it right now, but it turned out Keith wasn’t totally awful. Underneath all the assholeness, the emotive ability of a concussed tiger, impulse control of a squirrel on cocaine, and various fixations, Keith was almost likable. Like poisonous fungi, he grew on Lance.

 

Though unlike his feelings towards Shiro, without the Hanahaki Lance still wouldn’t have classified the churning mix of emotions Keith inspired _love_. In fact, if he was talking to Hunk about this he’d have said Keith was closer to Kismesis; that hateful, bittersweet kind of love based on rivalry, infuriating the other to do better, be better.

 

(Hunk had sworn on his family’s secret recipe book, better than even the holy book with Hunk, never to reveal his Homestuck phase. No one could ever know, but most especially _Pidge_ could never know. His Trollsona was going to stay in its grave damnit!)

 

Huh. It felt weirdly good to have everything set out so clearly in his head, to have looked at his feelings and accepted them! Maybe self-honesty wasn’t too bad after all?

 

The choking sensation of blood rising up his throat told him otherwise.

 

* * *

 

 

As a human and not one of the cheating Alteans or Galra, he was relatively fragile when it came to blunt force trauma. Thanks to his involvement with Warhammer 40,000: Somewhat Less Grim And Religious Edition, Lance is quite used to passing out from pain. However, he really wished he hadn’t discovered just how much more terrifying it is to pass out from vomiting up blood and plant matter with no fallback if he started choking to death on it.

 

Lance could only thank God and possibly the Lions that nothing had occurred to have one of his castlemates come across him like that. No matter how terrifying and likely phobia-creating passing out alone like that was, it was far better than to have been revealed riddled with Hanahaki. More than one can only keep a secret if the others are dead and haven’t made backup files of all your darkest secrets that would be mailed on their death to interested parties.

 

(One day, when he got back to Earth, he would finally find Hunk’s evidence stash of embarrassing shit he’d done and it would finally met its destined fiery end. Hunk is the worst for keeping those pictures of his intense anime-craze, when he’d modeled all his clothing after that one cool looking dick Gilgamesh. And that summer where he temporarily became a nudist in the vein of Nudist Beach. …Why couldn’t Hunk have been the one to do blackmail-quality shit?!)

 

Lance pinched his thigh sharply, biting back the yelp that wanted to escape as the pain got his brain to focus again. He was probably entering Stage 3 of Hanahaki, which meant the blackouts would only continue from here as the flowers continued to starve him of oxygen. He was going to be dealing with coughing up _entire flowers_ ; hell, with his luck of having two flowers to deal with, it could be bouquets!

 

There wasn’t any more time to stall was there? He was a Paladin, and he was going to be sent on missions where a Hanahaki attack could get everyone killed, captured, or knowing Haggar, something even worse.

 

“Even…Even if I’m just a seventh wheel, I’m still a wheel.” Lance whispered to himself. “Until they actually find someone to replace me I can’t act like this is my choice alone. We need Voltron, and there’s no Voltron without Blue.”

 

It ached to say that, somehow hurting and soothing at the same time. Lance didn’t really have the time to look too hard at the rest of his issues though, did he?

 

“It’s not fair…I just found out I love them and I have to choose between keeping my feelings or living!”

 

He hadn’t even really had the chance to just…just be in love with the idiots. He’d denied it was happening until the Hanahaki came in so rapidly that he’d never gotten a chance to even _flirt_ with them. All that time, wasted and then stolen, tainted by Hanahaki.

 

“And I don’t want to give this up, to give up my feelings for them! I want to keep them, I want a chance at this!”

 

His throat was burning with the pressure of oncoming tears, closing in a way that was without any Hanahaki helping. But he knew that saying things helped to actualize his thoughts, make it real. He deserved everything that could help make this even a little easier didn’t he?

 

“But even if I did tell them, if it somehow impossibly worked out that they’d loved me all along… I’d never believe it would I? I’d always wonder in the back of my mind, if it wasn’t just to keep a Paladin alive. We can’t afford the time it’d take to find and train a new one unless there’s no other choice, so of course Shiro would throw himself on the sword. And of course Keith would follow Shiro into Hell without being asked.”

 

It was possible it would fool him if they did that; fool the Hanahaki too. They wouldn’t even need to have it entirely fooled, just enough to ensure he was still combat capable. They’d just have to keep it up until they found his eventual replacement.

 

….God that was depressing and horrifying to contemplate. That was pretty much one of his worst nightmares, top five at least. The other four contenders tend to be dealing with death of loved ones (there’d already been a few with Shiro and Keith as the stars) or getting captured by a pissed off Haggar.

 

Lance shook his head, ignoring how wet his face felt. He knew, deep down, that neither Keith nor Shiro would ever do such a thing. To think “yeah, that’s totally how it’d go,” was just him demonizing them because he was insecure and his heart was being strangled by the hold they had on it.

 

“Damnit McClain,” He rasped out to himself, “Focus.”

 

He took as deep a breath as his lungs would allow, and it was mildly terrifying how short that maximum was now, forcing his thoughts back into order. Tears wouldn’t save him now, they’d just water the flowers trying to put him in his grave.

 

“The real truth is, there’s no time. No one falls in love that quick. And…And I’m entering Stage Three. With two flowers at this rate, Stage Four might come in a week. Fuck, maybe less.”

 

Stage Four was when Lance would be at death’s door, only kept alive through constant intensive medical aide as the flowers finally began to make their way out of the lungs and into the larynx. Even the extraction surgery might not be enough to save him, not even with the unnatural healing that all Hanahaki affected areas experienced after the cure or removal of the disease. Odds were good he’d die in the middle of surgery, the operation being too much on his wrecked and infested body.

 

“I love them, I’d die for them. But…I can’t. Not like this, not because of _fucking Hanahaki._ I can’t do that to everyone. A-and…I love so much more than just them.”

 

His family; parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, waiting for him back on Earth. His friends; Hunk, Pidge, Coran, and Allura. His Lion, space, Veradero beach, the ocean… hell, he was even fond of the Blades!

 

There was so much more to live for, even if he had to pay the highest price the extraction might take: his entire ability to feel love.

 

“…H-haha, I guess I’ve made up my mind. Shiro, Keith…I’m so sorry.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lance could swear he could hear weirdly muffled sounds. A bit like those ancient Peanuts cartoons. Waw-wa-wa-wawawawa. Almost Coran-y in tone too.

 

Wait. Coran?

 

Ack! Attempt to open eyes swiftly and sharply like all those cool action heroes do was a mistake! Terrible and painful mistake!

 

“I see you’ve come to Lance.”

 

As Lance was groaning about the light, he noticed Coran sounded weirdly…Solemn. Without the bounce and pep he usually had.

 

He immediately felt like the idiot Pidge always called him as he recalled why.

 

Vowing Coran to secrecy, even from Allura. Explanation of Hanahaki and its progression, and the side effects of treating it medically. Trying not to cry with Coran, and both failing a bit. Getting into the cryo-tube after Coran had modified the ever loving fuck out of one of its programs to essentially do massively invasive surgery non-invasively.

 

“…How do you feel?” He asked softly, and Lance didn’t need his eyes to cooperate to know the look on Coran’s face.

 

“Physically, like I just got done being used by Zarkon as his chew toy. But I can actually breathe instead of wheezing, so…”

 

That wasn’t the actual question though, as Lance very well knew. Coran wanted to know what exactly the consequences were for Lance ripping out and destroying the magical disease that was _very literally_ rooted in his feelings of love. And as much as he wanted to never think about this ever again, ignoring it had come to this, Lance knew he needed to know.

 

He deliberately thought of his family first, carefully watching his feelings as he did. If it had damaged even those feelings, then the consequences would be…substantial, as he’d outlined to a deeply horrified Coran.

 

“Familial love is okay Coran. I’m not feeling any different there.” Lance confirmed with relief, which meant that he’d probably gotten to Coran in time.

 

He called up memories and impressions of his friends, feeling the emotions rising and flowing as he did. Those seemed to be fine, nothing was really different-

 

“Shit. Something’s different about Allura. Everyone else I feel platonic, non-familial love is fine I think.” He could practically feel Coran tense along with him as he said that, and he swallowed. It…meant he almost certainly had damage in his emotive ability now.

 

It was terrifying to know that he wasn’t going to be one of the lucky ones who escaped with no real damage. But what would be even more terrifying is not knowing _exactly_ what was damaged.

 

Lance braced himself, and carefully thought of Shiro and Keith. Less carefully, he ran through memories that had always been guaranteed to make him feel things for the duo. With a bit of panic, he switched to thinking of all the various attractive beings he’d seen out in space and tried to think of how he’d felt about them.

 

“Coran…I…I think I’ve lost almost all romantic love. A-and, I think it damaged my general feelings to Shiro and Keith.”

 

Lance was startled to feel strong arms pulling him out of the cryo-tube, wrapping him in a tight hug. He thought distantly, I’m in shock aren’t I?

 

It helped to have someone hold him while he broke down in ugly, terrible tears.

  

* * *

 

 

Months later, Coran would tell him the cryo-tube had removed but not atomized the flowers when they were removed. To save power and precious time, the tube had instead shunted the ‘biohazardous waste’ to a specially prepared container that kept the sample fresh for study. Mostly, Coran confessed, he’d wanted to research the unique human disease…Just in case there was another incident. But he’d also wondered if Lance might want…a memento; a few of each kind of flower had survived, and were almost pristine.

 

Out of morbid curiosity and other things he wasn’t going to admit to himself right now, Lance had agreed to at least look at them before saying that he actually just wanted them destroyed. It didn’t take Coran long to pull out two tiny bouquets from their hiding place, each surface glinting in the light like they’d been covered in glass.

 

“I took the liberty of ensuring they’d remain unspoiled without the container my boy. Just in case.”

 

Lance wasn’t paying attention to Coran though, instead he was paying attention to the flowers he was seeing for the first time.

 

The flowers were small for something that had nearly killed him. Not a single one of them was a rose, which for some reason he found surprising despite knowing that the petals weren’t rose petals. The shape and size had been all wrong, though he’d never really been able to make out the colors till now. Lance smiled involuntarily as he realized that even now he knew instinctively which flower belonged to whom.

 

The vibrant yellow-orange flowers were Keith’s, each one having four round petals to it. And each flower was close enough to its neighbor to touch, several flowers each to a stem, making a cute little ball of flowers that looked ready to burst.

 

The soft, pure pastel blue flowers were Shiro’s without a doubt. Each stem had a solitary, fragile looking flower. The five petals looked like they’d tear in a harsh breeze, but something about them gave off a sense of hardiness in spite of their appearance.

 

“I know these flowers…Flax and wallflowers…I just wish I remembered what they mean. They’re supposed to be what I loved best about them, what I really fell for.”

 

“Don’t you already know that?” The Altean asked slowly.

 

Coran’s question shocked him into a burst of laughter, and Lance grinned.

 

“Heh, you’re right. I do, don’t I? Hey Coran…Thanks. I think I will keep them after all.”

 

“It was no trouble at all Lance.” Coran said softly, and handed him the bouquets.

 

“…You know…I think I could use some help displaying them properly. Would you–”

 

“I’d be delighted my boy. Lead the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Keith-Wall Flower: Fidelity in Adversity
> 
> Shiro-Flax Flower: I feel your Kindness; Fate
> 
> Mourning Bride Flower: Unfortunate attachment; I have lost all  
> \---
> 
> Me: …boy do I loooooove Hanahaki Disease angst. But it always ends the same, and really, would Lance do it? Nope, self-esteem may be shit but he cares about others. He’d take the harder option.  
> Also Me: You’re never gonna find that fic.  
> Me: I’mma fucking write it.
> 
> That right there was the thought process behind writing this, though unfortunately I didn't have the steampower to write it out as lengthily as I originally wanted. I've read some good fics where Lance's various issues leads him to do nothing about the Hanahaki in order to preserve his feelings, or because he views himself so poorly he decides that there's no reason to take the way out when he's replaceable. 
> 
> But to me that's the wrong kind of selflessness for him. It's a blatantly selfish selflessness, wallowing in itself as it rationalizes away the effects it will have. I felt that in a HD situation, Lance would do something where he tells no one and denies anyone any say in it while he assumed the burden entirely. It's a sacrifice of self, but a more difficult kind of sacrifice. This is the kind of thing you have to *live with.*


End file.
